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emotion regulation

Welcome to transition week! We’re going to be spending some time focusing on what executive functioning skills and tricks you can use to make it easier to move from one task, thought, or place to another. This may seem incredibly specific, but many people with autism and ADHD struggle with effectively changing their focus, so it’s getting a whole section of its own.

People struggle with a number of types of transitions. One that gets addressed a lot is specific to kids in school when they need to move from one assignment to the next or one class to the next, but I find myself struggling with transitions in all kinds of places: getting out the door and moving to another location. Ending an activity and doing something else. Leaving social situations, which is not only a transition but also a social communication moment so it’s got some extra levels of difficulty.

Sometimes it’s tough to move from one thought to another: I’ll get stuck need to complete a thought or follow something through to its conclusion and can’t move on (this bit me in the butt a lot in school when I was writing papers because I had to explore EVERY thought completely, which meant I would write pages and pages beyond what I was supposed to and couldn’t ever cut it down). One that I have rarely heard mentioned is moving from one person to another. For me this is specifically when those people are parts of different social circles and I have to adjust to different contexts, it can be incredibly difficult to turn off the one version of myself and turn on the other one.

The skills we’re going to talk about this week will apply to some (and maybe all) of these types of transitions, but hopefully throughout the week I’ll address each of them. Sometimes it’s helpful to even identify something as a transition so that you can give yourself more time or insert a break in between the two things.

One of the challenging things about transitions is that moving from one task to another isn’t one skill. It’s a lot of skills, but we don’t typically break it down because for many of us these skills come naturally. First you have to decide when and how you will end one task. You have to remove your focus and attention from that task. You have to figure out how to clean it up/save your work/put away the component. Then you have to determine what you’ll do next and in what order, figure out what you need for the next task and how to get it, acquire all of it, and bring your focus to a new task. All of this needs to be done without getting distracted, without sensory overload, in the correct order, and in many cases while interacting with other people.

I highly recommend looking at all of those steps if you’re struggling with transitions. Which one are you getting stuck on? Did you forget certain steps? Would it help to write out the sequence you need to follow? You can tailor your skills to fit the part that you’re having trouble with. If it’s figuring out what to do next, perhaps write a to do list in advance. If it’s ending the task, work on visual timers or giving yourself concrete stopping points. We’ll talk more about all of those types of skills in later posts this week.

There are a couple of elements of neurodivergent brains that can make it harder to transition. I’d like to call them out so we can reference them when we talk about skills. The first is hyperfocus, which is especially pertinent for autistic brains. If you become hyperfocused on a project, it becomes much more challenging to pull your attention away and end it. There’s also sensory overload: you might be changing environments and sensory inputs during a transition which makes it a prime time for sensory overload. Transitions also require putting things in order, following the sequence, and understanding how the steps relate, which is its whole own element of executive functioning (I’ll be writing about it in a bit). Finally, transition is a prime opportunity for distractions to arise, especially if you’re going to a new location.

Any one of these elements can break down in the process of transition. It can help to figure out which one you’re struggling with and tailor your solutions to that problem.

A final element that I have experienced around transitions and that I know other people experience is anxiety. If you’re not certain how to start the next task, that can be anxiety provoking. If you’re not sure what’s coming next that’s even worse. While I’ll be focusing on practical suggestions in this section, I highly recommend heading back to the emotion regulation posts if you are struggling with a lot of anxiety around transitions. You can pair skills from emotion regulation with the skills we’ll address in this transition section to be effective and feel better.

So now that we’ve identified the challenges of transitions, we’ll head on in to some solutions. Look for a second post soon!

Welcome to the end of our section on emotion regulation! We’ve talked through what emotion regulation is, how it’s related to executive function, using DBT skills, relying on logic, and the basics of self-care. You might notice that almost all of these are things that an individual can do pretty much on their own. So now we’re going to talk about external things: what objects you can use to help your emotion regulation and how other people can help you.

I’m going to start with objects because they’re easier than people (ahahahahaha). The first type of objects I’m going to talk about are things that are comforting or helpful for just making you feel better. I can highly recommend weighted blankets if you have anxiety or crave deep pressure, and I also highly recommend finding some fidgets that feel good to you if you’re a fidgeter. Sometimes it takes a bit of work and pickiness to find objects that feel right to you, whether that’s a pillow that’s truly comfortable or a kettle that allows you to make comforting, delicious tea with ease. Don’t be afraid to invest a little bit (as you’re able) in some things that will improve your quality of life in little ways. For me, fuzzy socks and footie pajamas are big, plus absurdly colorful makeup that I can play with if I get bored and antsy at the same time.

You can also use objects to cue other behaviors. If I’m having a particularly hard time, I’ll tape a list of people I can rely on to my bedroom wall. I don’t often have to call those people, but it reminds me that I’ve got a support network. I might also leave my towel on my bed to remind myself to take a bath. It’s easy to brush off self care or forget about it, so I like to make it visible and in my face. Put glitter on my bathroom sink so that I remember to put it on every morning and sparkle.

I also will often put a lot of emotional meaning into objects: there’s a particular blanket that my parents gave me for Christmas when I was very unwell together with a note that said if they weren’t there, imagine that the blanket was them giving me a hug. That blanket always means just a little bit more to me than one that just keeps me warm. There are some objects that might go the opposite direction: I strongly recommend getting rid of objects that remind you of your nasty ex or that you’re only keeping out of obligation to that one aunt you don’t like too much. But if you like solid reminders of the people who love you, it can be lovely to exchange gifts, make each other artwork, or find other physical reminders.

Speaking of people, let’s talk about social elements of emotion regulation because boy howdy there is a lot there. I can’t go into every element of this, because stuff like social anxiety or abuse or healthy boundaries could take up whole books of their own, but what I’d like to focus on here is how you can ask for help and support in your emotion regulation from other people.

My first suggestion is to find some people you don’t have to mask around at all. People you can be completely yourself. That is a tall order, but the payoff is huge. Where you find these people will vary, but I recommend looking into your special interests, or finding one awesome person who is reasonably social and likes you then getting them to introduce you to everyone else they know. Being able to socialize without the anxiety of masking reduces emotional load significantly.

I also like to have friends who will check in on me in a real way. I don’t mean asking ‘hey how are you?” I mean people who know me well enough to notice when my behavior changes, people who know my specific challenges and can ask about them, people who I trust to be honest with them. Sometimes I will specifically ask for things: hey can you text me around noon each day to make sure I’ve eaten something? Other times I just try to see the same people at about the same time each day/week/month so that if things get missed they’ll check in with me.

Friends can also be very helpful for motivation. When you’re struggling to clean your house you can ask someone else to come over and just be your cleaning buddy: they don’t have to help, but you know they’ll show up on this day expecting you to clean and it will help motivate you.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help! Sometimes I can’t cook for myself and I’ll mention either to specific friends or on Facebook that I need help. I try to be specific in what I ask for in support, e.g. ‘it’s helpful to me if you ask me to go out to dinner or bring me frozen meals” or “it’s helpful to me if you remind me of something you like about me as a person.” That means doing enough work up front that you can at least point someone in the direction of how to help you. Sometimes that means saying “please don’t give advice. I’m not sure what would help, but not that.” When I’m in a particularly bad place I headbutt my husband and tell him “I need help but I don’t know what I need. Can you just make a decision for me?” because I tend towards decision fatigue in a big way.

People are also really good for bouncing ideas off of. I tend to overload myself, hold myself to perfectionistic standards, and work too hard. When I’m feeling overwhelmed I’ll tell a trusted person what’s overwhelming me and propose what I’d LIKE to do instead of all the work. I’ll ask them if it sounds reasonable. Sometimes it helps to have someone else give you permission to do what you should be doing.

Especially if you’re the type of person whose brain tends anxious or depressed, it’s good to have some people who can remind you of what’s reasonable. All of us need that person who will say “what the fuck are you talking about” when we tell them “I suck and everything I do sucks”.

Last but not least, venting to other people can do wonders. Just talking through how you’re feeling to figure it out for yourself, get some feedback on the situation, and have someone say “you’re right that is awful” can go a long way. Don’t forget to include these types of interactions in your self-care schedule, or have people available for unexpected shit days. Building up a network of friends and letting go of people who stress you the hell out can do wonders for your emotion regulation. I highly recommend it.

Welcome back to the Emotion Regulation section of our Executive Function series! I hope that you’re not surprised to see the term self care cropping up here, because it’s a very popular concept right now, and I think it’s one that’s often misunderstood so we’re going to dive into how you can use self care concepts to keep your mood in a good place and to manage bad moods.

Self care includes any and all actions that take care of yourself. Duh. Obvious (so many of our emotion regulation things are). But that means it’s not always things that feel good. Self care is all about balance: doing things that will help you feel better in the future because you’re healthy and housed and so on, as well as things that help to fill you up in the moment.

Let’s start with the hard bits of self care. The first thing I’d note on this list is that if you’re going to prioritize self care (which you’ll want to do if you want your emotions to be reasonably stable and not overwhelming), you have to take care of your health. That means making doctors appointments on the regs, getting in to the dentist, going to the grocery store so that you have decent food to eat, getting up and moving around on a regular basis, taking time off when you’re sick, getting vaccines, and so on. This is your long term self care plan.

These are hard things to do. We’ll get into some strategies for how to plan for them as we dive deeper into executive function, but one thing that I want to note is that there’s a kind of chicken and egg situation with executive function: the more you get on top of your ongoing adulting type tasks, the more your emotions will stay up, and the easier it will feel to keep doing those tasks. Even if you can add one of these types of tasks to your regular schedule, it should start building on itself.

I’d recommend having a journal or notebook where you can write down things like your last dentist appointment, your last physical, tracking your sleep, all those basic things that keep your body going strong and keep you from getting behind on important things (like bills, cleaning your home, etc.).

An important element of these types of self care is remembering to say no sometimes. That means saying no to new projects or opportunities when you don’t have time, saying no to fun stuff if you need to get other things done, saying no to people asking you to do things even if you could or you feel obligated. You don’t have to do everything and you can’t do everything. You will be far more capable of “adulting” if you say no some of the optional things in life and dedicate some of that time to managing finance, logistics, and health.

It’s easy enough to say “oh do all the adult things that you’re supposed to do because it will make you feel better” but it’s significantly harder to actually go ahead and figure out how to do those things. Maintaining a house, keeping up on insurance and healthcare and pet visits and car maintenance and when did I get a new IUD last? It’s a lot. We’ll be getting in to some methods for planning and organization later in this series (in fact I’ve got a whole section planned for that), but for now I’m going to give some brief hints that have helped me manage some of these things.

The biggest thing I do is use external scheduling reminders and consistent routines to keep up adult tasks. There are two general types of things that I have to manage: things that are periodic, like getting the oil changed in my car or going to the dentist, or regular things like cleaning the litter boxes or depositing my paycheck. I automate as many of these things as humanly possible (all bills and financial things) which cuts down on quite a bit.

For periodic things, I try to add reminders in multiple places. My phone and my planner are the most common. I also like to set up the next appointment as soon as I do this one, so that I don’t have to remember to make an appointment, just show up (and many if not most places will send you reminders). Consistency is key here. I like to go to the same place every time for something, as that makes it that much easier. We’ll talk more about memory and planners later, but whatever system you end up using, make sure you have the ability to make notes for the future.

The other thing I like to set up is routines! These are great for those regular tasks that always need to get done. Whenever possible I like to include another person in my routine to keep me accountable (this is why my workouts are in a class format), and do a little bit of data collection to find out when I’m most motivated for a given task. I also try not to set expectations too high for myself. Most people consider it disgusting if you don’t clean the litter boxes every day. I do it every three days. But my cats don’t care and I can’t smell it so it’s fine. I keep it realistic because when I make the goal to do it every day I get discouraged and end up doing it less often.

On the other hand, sometimes it feels real frickin’ good to do things that aren’t responsible. I like to schedule at least one day a week during which I do nothing of use. I relax. I drink tea. I eat chocolate. I do the things that let my mind melt. It’s important to have time for just plain old fun and relaxation.

A few notes here: after many years of trying to find the balance of relaxation and work, I’ve come to find that for me it’s a little more complex than that. The indulgent side of self care actually has two components: fun and exciting things that most often happen with friends, and relaxing and quiet things that let my mind and body rest. I need both of these. Spend some time noticing the different needs that you have and figuring out what helps for each one. You may have some self care that looks very traditional (I’m way into baths) and some that doesn’t (self care for me also includes insisting that my weekly Dungeons and Dragons sessions don’t get cancelled too often). You may have to research what self care works for you! There are tons and tons of Googleable lists out there of self care suggestions, so take a look and see what resonates.

A few suggestions: learning a bit about mindfulness is great for some of the relaxation type self care. You may not love it (and that’s ok), but it’s good to have the ability to be somewhat still and learn how to untense your body at least a touch. For those who like meditation or yoga those are great options!

If you are on the autism spectrum or have other sensory processing issues, this is where you want to pay very close attention to your sensory needs. If you’re trying to relax but there’s a fluorescent light that gives you a headache, it’s not going to work. Notice what you’re hyper sensitive to so that you can drown it out when you want your mind to chill out. On the other hand, notice what sensory activities you seek out. My self care goes all off kilter if I don’t get to climb something or swing on something or go whoosh at least a little bit each week. You may be able to incorporate a little bit of self care each day by having a particularly satisfying fidget on your desk.

Speaking of fidgeting, stimming is also something to pay attention to when building your self care routine. If you need to mask your stims while at work or out in public, make sure you’ve got some places to safely and comfortably stim in a way that feels good to you. A space for not pretending is the best self care I know.

One of the things that I hear often is that emotions and logic are opposites. If you would like to irritate me into a blind rage, say that to me a lot. What we’re going to be talking about today is how to use logic and emotions in tandem, specifically ways that you can use logic to regulate your emotions. Your mileage may vary on these skills (I personally don’t find it useful to try to think my way out of situations because I can argue myself into or out of anything), but for those that find it helpful these seem to be life changing skills.

The first thing that you can do to marry logic and emotions is to spend some time understanding emotions. Turns out that these feelings we’ve got actually tend to follow reasonably predictable patterns. On a very basic level, feelings are information. They tell you something about what is going on around you. Sadness indicates that you’ve lost something or someone. Fear tells you that you’re in danger. Anger tells you that someone has violated your boundaries or done something you find unacceptable. Taking the time to learn what each emotion has to offer you is important, because then in the moment you can respond to the emotion with curiosity: what does this emotion tell me? Can I do what that emotion is asking of me? Am I reacting in a way that matches the intensity of the situation? You can readmore about the purposes of emotions in a bunch of places.

Once you’ve done that up front work of figuring out what your emotions do for you, you can do some work that will help you to actually identify individual feelings. Yes, that is work and yes sometimes it is hard, especially when your emotions are particularly strong or you’re having quite a few at once. But knowing what it is you’re feeling and why can give you some helpful information about how to respond.

One place to start is just by having a big ol’ list of emotionshandy to help you name what you’re feeling. There are a LOT of feelings words out there and sometimes you can’t quite put your finger on it until you see it in front of you. You may prefer to write about your emotions, or simply spend some quiet time thinking about your emotions. Some people I know like to assign a color to different emotions as it’s easier for them to think that way. You may want to have a professional therapist help you with the process of naming and identifying your emotions if you’re really feeling stuck. In tandem with identifying the emotion, some people like to identify its intensity with a number or color to help them see how to respond.

Another method is to look at what your body is actually doing in any given moment to help you figure out what you’re feeling. I try to notice my physical sensations: is there tightness in my chest? That usually means anxiety. I’ve noticed that when I’m hitting a really low depressive state I feel shooting pains down my right arm. If I’m clenching my fists I am probably angry. For us autistics, we can also look at our stims. If they’re getting super intense, you may be feeling some anxiety. If you’re flapping a lot, maybe you’re excited.

This is one of those places where data can be incredibly helpful, so I personally like to track my emotions each day. It gives me some practice with identifying what I’m feeling, can help me to see what I did when I felt each emotion, and gives me some data about long term patterns. It can also help me to see whether the things I’m doing to improve or change my moods are effective.

What do I mean by that?

Well, sometimes our feelings are out of synch with what’s happening around us or they’re just not helpful. Sometimes I get overwhelmingly angry because someone is chewing loudly in the same room as me. They have not actually violated any boundaries, but because I have sensory sensitivities, the sound is overwhelming and I’m angry. When I stop for a minute and think about it I realize that it’s on me to deal with this situation because they are not doing anything wrong.

I have a few options here: I can continue to be upset, I can try to change the situation, or I can try to accept the situation and see if I can change the emotion.

I just want to stress that sentence because these are the options we have in any circumstance that we don’t like. Any time you are deciding what to do in a given situation you are looking at these three options. It can help to put them into a clear and consistent framework and realize that even if you don’t like “change the situation” or “change the emotion” you’re still making a choice, which is continuing to feel awful.

Ok so you’ve identified an emotion, you’re like “hey I’m pretty distressed about this” and you want to figure out what to do. My first step would be to check the facts: take some time to see if you can describe the situation without emotions and determine if the emotions you’re having make sense and fit in intensity. I often do this by writing things down, or talking through them with another person to see if my perception is reasonable and relatively objective. When you describe the situation try to do it in as neutral of terms as possible: they weren’t making an angry face. Their face was scrunched up, or their jaw was clenched.

This is where you’ll want to rely on your understanding of the purpose of emotions. Let’s say I ask a friend to go to a movie and they say they’re busy. Maybe I feel angry because I feel as if they’re blowing me off. Checking the facts, I don’t have any information about their motive or if they like me. I can ask them more to find out what’s up with them, or if we can go a different time. Maybe I check the facts and realize that they have said no every time I’ve asked them to do something for the last few months. I can probably draw the conclusion that they don’t want to be around me, and I might feel sad or angry.

One thing to note: this is the step where it’s easy to fall prey to cognitive distortions or include your own opinion as fact. Do your best to just describe exactly what happened: “I called my friend. I asked them to the movie. They said no.” Drawing conclusions is separate from the facts. Sometimes you have to do it because you don’t have all the information, but try to be aware when you’re adding in opinions or guesswork. The other person’s emotions, unless they have told you, are not facts.

So now that you have the basic information, you can make some decisions about which course of action to take. If your emotion doesn’t make any sense in the context, you may want to do some work to change the emotion (through self soothing, distraction, self care, etc.). If your emotion does make sense, you may want to try to change the situation in some fashion. There are some times where your emotion does make sense but there isn’t anything you can do about the situation. Those are the shitty times when you just have to accept the way the world is and do your best to manage the emotions.

When I’m choosing what to do to try to adjust an emotion or change a situation, I like to use pro/con lists. I’ll brainstorm a couple possible courses of action (confront my friend, stop asking my friend to go to things, ask a different friend to the movie), and then look at the pros and cons of each one. Write out what would happen if you did that action. Write out what would happen if you didn’t. Think it through to its conclusion!

This is another great place for that data I was talking about earlier! Let’s say you have a distressing situation and you go through all these steps then choose a course of action. If afterwards you continue to feel shitty, then that’s data for the next time you have a similar situation.

Last but not least, some people like to use logic to directly confront their brain’s clear lies. If you’re struggling with emotion regulation, chances are that you’ve got a few myths living in your brain, like “if I can’t please everyone I’m a bad person” or “being skinny reflects my goodness as a person”. Once you identify those myths you can start directly addressing them with facts and logic. If that doesn’t work, I sometimes will imagine them in Donald Trump’s voice because everything he says is trash.

You can check out some other tactics for fighting brain lies over at Captain Awkward, or you can be like me and get a tattoo whenever you feel like you’re forgetting what’s true. Anything to ground you in reality.

Hello and welcome to day two of Emotion Regulation week, the week where we talk about finding healthy ways to deal with feelings (I swear it’s more fun than it sounds like). In this section I’m going to focus on skills that I learned in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, because DBT has a whole section on emotion regulation that breaks things down into clear and easy to understand skills, and also because it was the first time that I heard the term emotion regulation or got any education in this realm.

The first skill we’re going to talk about might seem silly when we’re talking about keeping our emotions managed, but sometimes we forget about it: do things that feel good. In DBT speak we call this “accumulate positive experiences” but basically it just means schedule time in your life to do things that you enjoy doing and that make you feel good.

Seems easy right? Sometimes this requires actually doing some work. You may have to try a few different things to see what actually leaves you feeling more positive than when you started. Gather some data! Write down how you feel before you do something “fun” and how you feel after to see if it actually improved your mood. Do some work to see which things affect which moods (for example I tend to find that aerials makes me feel much better when I’m angry or overwhelmed, but is much harder when I’m at a low/sad/down mood). For some people this is the typical “self care” type things like taking a bath, deep breathing, or manicures, but for others it’s playing Dungeons and Dragons or going for a run or volunteering.

The other element that’s important is prioritizing fun and enjoyable things. It’s easy to let fun fall by the wayside when we get busy, but having regular activities that feel good makes us more capable of facing work and hard situations. Maybe you want to have a weekly activity that you never miss, or maybe you track your socializing or relaxation time in an app or journal.

One note here: this is all about balance! Positive experiences aren’t just sitting around on your computer all day every day, because eventually that stops feeling great. I would also suggest that for things that allow you to zone out or not think you spend some time determining if you actually feel better afterwards. There are certain things I used to do to “relax” (candy crush) that over time I realized weren’t actually that enjoyable, they were just easy and mindless. Pay attention to whether you actually like what you’re doing.

Skill two is called build mastery, but basically it’s doing things that make you feel competent and accomplished. This can be something very very small: if you’re feeling overwhelmed by negative feelings, getting up and taking a shower can give you a first shot of confidence that helps you move on to something bigger. I like to think of it in larger terms too though.

For me, building mastery is often about regularly trying new things so that I can see improvement. That ability to see improvement is incredibly important to me because it makes me feel competent and able. It’s surprising how long that feeling of success lasts when you notice that you’ve improved at something. It carries through into many other areas of your life and helps you to feel in control.

So from little things that allow you to feel like your life is in control (cleaning the bathroom) to big things that allow you to feel in control of your own growth (seeing progress in your career), incorporating elements into your life that give you a sense of control and improvement will help to keep your mood up.

You may have noticed that our first two skills have to do with ongoing emotional regulation. They are things you can incorporate throughout your life that should help to keep your mood from dipping too low. The next two skills are going to be about reacting to difficult experiences.

So skill number three is called cope ahead. Sometimes we can anticipate that a particular situation or experience will be difficult. If you’re planning to break up with someone, or if you’ve got a performance review coming up, you can anticipate that you might have some big and challenging emotions around the situation. Cope ahead is essentially identifying situations that are likely to be challenging and then thinking of what you can do to make it better.

What might that look like?

The first step is being somewhat mindful about potentially nasty situations. A lot of the time we can identify them by noticing if we’re feeling anxious, afraid, or angry about an upcoming situation. Other times it’s super obvious! A big test or a presentation at work is likely to cause a lot of stress. If you are thinking a lot about something or sinking a ton of time into it, practicing a little bit of cope ahead can be great!

Once you’ve figured out what the difficult situation might be, how do you plan for it? You might start by imagining how you want the situation to go, practicing scripts, or imagining where your boundaries are. You can also set up the time before and after the situation to focus on self care. You might make sure you get good sleep and a good meal ahead of time, or spend some time with a person that makes you feel good. I also highly recommend having your emotional emergency kit ready to go afterwards, whatever that might look like for you: for me I like to have my footie pajamas, some chocolate, a good movie, and someone that I can vent to.

One example of this is that I always schedule aerials class for after therapy because I know that I’ll have a lot of emotions and a good workout helps me to feel more relaxed again.

In some cases you may also be able to include some self care in the moment. I like to have a fidget with me during stressful situations, which is a small way to plan for a stressful situation.

Speaking of in the moment, let’s head on to our fourth skill for this post: improve the moment!

You might be surprised that improve is actually an acronym in this case. The skill is exactly what it sounds like: ways that you can try to make yourself feel better when a moment is unpleasant. The acronym is all the different options.

You can check out all these different definitions here, but what I would focus on for this is finding what works for you. Does it make you feel better to turn to a higher power and pray? Does it make you feel better to take a half hour out of your day and completely zone out without worrying? I like to keep a list of things that help me feel better or at least keep my mood from getting worse when I’m having a bad day. That list has lived in multiple places over time: on my wall in my room, in my journal that I keep with me all the time, on my computer.

You can do a combo pack of cope ahead and improve the moment by writing up that list and putting it in an easily accessible place so that you’ve got the tools you need if something crops up unexpectedly.

This is another area where experimentation can be good. Every time you have a bad day, try something new and see if your mood stays the same, gets worse, or gets better. Write down the ones that works and go from there!

There are tons of greatlists of self care options out there that can help give you ideas of what might improve your mood. Check them out and see what you like the best, then practice your emotion regulation skills.

Fun life updates! I’m currently working on a book about executive functioning, and because of the time commitment I’m struggling to blog as much as I’d like. So instead of trying to do both, I’m going to combine them into one super writing THING that hopefully will help me continue writing regularly while also developing the ideas I want for my book. Boom.

I’m going to start this week by giving you an overview of the tips and tricks that I use for emotion regulation. What does that have to do with executive functioning? Well executive functioning is all the skills we use to plan and organize ourselves and the world around us, which includes our emotions. That means that understanding and regulating our emotions is actually a major part of executive functioning. I’ve encountered a few people who push back on the idea that it falls into the same category as planning and organization or time management, but it actually relies on many of the same skills.

First a quick definition. This one is fairly easy and self explanatory: emotion regulation is the ability to regulate your own emotions. Every day we have emotions and have to learn how to respond to them, how to manage them, and how to cope with difficult situations. Some of our responses are healthy and others are not. We’re going to be focused on healthy emotion regulation.

Emotion regulation is important in its own right: it’s exhausting, time consuming, and sometimes downright dangerous to use unhealthy coping mechanisms (see: drug or alcohol abuse, impulsive behavior, self harm, eating disorders). Always having your emotions at an extremely high level, or pushing them away and never feeling them at all takes a lot of energy and is honestly just deeply unpleasant. But in addition to that, emotion regulation is a really important base for a lot of other executive functioning skills. It’s very hard to effectively plan and organize your day, to do your work, to focus on a task, or to keep track of time if you’re overwhelmed with sadness. Keeping your emotions at a level that feels reasonable to you and that doesn’t keep you from achieving your other goals is an important purpose for emotion regulation.

This week I’ll be sharing a series of posts about ways to do emotion regulation, so for today’s post I’m going to stick to some of the very, very basics. These are Olivia’s hottest of hot tips, the easiest ways to keep your emotions reasonably stable, or at least to give yourself a leg up at keeping your emotions stable. If someone asks me “Olivia, I feel like poop/I can’t focus/I can’t manage my sensory input/there’s something about my brain that feels bad and I don’t like it” this is literally always the first thing that I tell them.

Your body affects your brain.

Seems obvious, but sometimes we forget that when our bodies feel like poop our emotions tend to feel like poop. So if you want a strong base for your emotions, do the very simple, very basic things that will help your body feel reasonably good and healthy.

-Eat food on a regular basis, and have some vegetables sometimes. You don’t have to have a perfect diet but definitely make sure you’re getting in a couple good meals a day and that you’re not ONLY eating sugar or snacks.

-Sleep enough. Whatever that means to you. Prioritize it. It’s not exciting or fun, but without it nothing will be exciting or fun.

-Move your body. You don’t have to be an exercise freak or super fit, but go for a dang walk a few times a week, or find something that you enjoy that gets you standing up and moving around. Bonus points if you can go outside when you do it.

-Take medications as prescribed. If you’ve got brain meds this is obvious, but taking meds for physical ailments is also super important because physical pain and discomfort really makes a person cranky (what a surprise). I’ll also add that something to pay attention to here is alcohol or recreational drugs. I’m not going to say never ever use either of those things, but be highly aware of how you’re using them and how often.

-If you’re sick take care of yourself. Go to the doctor, rest, fluids, blah blah blah. But don’t try to push through illness for no reason (I say this as I’m working while trying to ignore a cold, so I understand that this is easier said than done).

Even if you do nothing else that anyone ever recommends for keeping your emotions regulated, these things will bring that base level of stability up and give you more energy to deal with emotions. It turns out that being super hungry affects your mood, or never getting enough sleep can make you really crabby, or sitting for hours and hours at a time can leave you feeling depressed. Mind blowing, I know.